Muscle power row between Kerala CM, Congress Kerala president continues

Kerala is witnessing a muscle power row with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Congress state president K Sudhakaran making claims and allegations over past political violence.

Sudhakaran on Saturday denied Vijayan's allegations that the former plotted to kidnap Vijayan's children and even challenged the CM to prove the allegations of currency smuggling and goonda nexus against him, saying he would quit politics if the allegations are proved.

Sudhakaran, who is a Lok Sabha MP from Kannur in Kerala, also said that Vijayan was talking like a political criminal on Friday by raising baseless allegations. He also recollected past political violence allegedly led by Vijayan. At least 28 Congress workers were murdered by the CPM cadres in Kannur, while the Congress workers were involved only in one murder.

Both Vijayan and Sudhakaran hail from Kannur in North Kerala, which had witnessed many political killings.

Read | Kerala CM Vijayan alleges new state Congress chief Sudhakaran once tried to kidnap his children

Sudhakaran's fresh statements were a sequel to the ongoing slugfest between the two that kicked off with a reference made by Sudhakaran in an interview to a Malayalam publication that he had once roughed up Vijayan during a political clash during their college days at Government Brennen College in Kannur. Sudhakaran said that he shared that incident off the record with the reporter as he did not want to make it public. But he stuck to his version that Vijayan was roughed up.

Vijayan had denied it during his routine press conference on Friday and also maintained that Left student activities carried away Sudhakaran as per his instruction during the violence at the college.

Vijayan had alleged that a late Congress leader, who was a close aide of Sudhakaran, had once alerted him that Sudhakaran was plotting to kidnap Vijayan's school-going children. Sudhakaran dismissed them as 'baseless', saying that any father would have confided in his wife about such an incident, which Vijayan did not do. Vijayan is now coming out with cooked-up stories for political gains, he said.

Sudhakaran countered the allegations of Vijayan that the Congress leader was involved in currency smuggling and being involved in goonda nexus by referring to the gold and dollar smuggling allegations that had surfaced against the Vijayan government.

Sudhakaran turned his ire at reporters who raised unpleasant questions against him. He asked if questions were being fed to them from the AKG Centre (CPM's headquarters).